


An Avatar for a Dead People

by AnotherShotofBourbon



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Zombie AU, short story collection, the collection of Zombie AU stories I've done as prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:26:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4811432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherShotofBourbon/pseuds/AnotherShotofBourbon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here is the collection of prompts I've done in a zombie au for thegearinator that may get turned into one long, continuous story, or may stay as just a series of shorts I return to every now and again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thegearinator asked: Zombie Apocalypse AU where Asami and Co. are surviving when a heavily bitten Korra stumble upon their camp, except Korra doesn't show any signs of turning, and some of the bites are weeks old. Is this good for a one shot?

It was getting dark, and she needed to find a place to sleep for the night. The sun was setting and the street lights had long ago burned out, so light around here was scarce.

It also didn’t help that she had gotten her pack taken from her in the run in with that zombie horde two nights ago. She really hated cities, especially one as big as Republic City. It didn’t even have a proper winter. It didn’t get real cold like it did back home. Back home, when winter came, they’d be able to gather supplies and pick off the slow and frozen zombies with ease. But stupid Republic City was mild all winter long. It didn’t even have any snow.

She had to believe that it was because it was dark that she didn’t see the zombie approaching her from behind, and not because she was ranting to herself about how stupid Republic City was without a proper winter.

The zombie grabbed her shoulder with more strength than it’s molten, rotten flesh should have allowed.

Korra immediately whipped around and on instinct, punched.

Her fist connected under the zombie’s jaw and pushed right through the tissue and bone. This zombie was old, and smelled old.

For a second Korra just marveled at herself, and her strength that allowed her to uppercut right through a zombie’s jaw. The now useless jaw of the zombie was around her bicep and her forearm was sticking out of the back of its head.

“Oh, what’s wrong zombie?” Korra asked with fake concern. “Can’t bite down? Can’t eat me? Did I just punch through your stupid jaw? Aww poor baby. Poor stupid fucking zombie asshole.”

The zombie tried to groan but Korra’s punch also destroyed what little vocal chords were left. The human drew her trusty knife and stabbed the zombie in the skull before removing her arm from it’s jaw.

“Great now I’m covered in even more blood. Thanks jackass,” Korra muttered as she kicked the totally, truly dead body once. “ugh, is it too much to hope for a place with a shower?”

“Holy shit bro, you need to see this!” Bolin said from almost a half mile away.

“What?” Mako asked sleepily. Bolin was supposed to be taking this shift to watch out for survivors or zombies or whatever, he was supposed to be getting a nap.

“This chick,” Bolin said as he handed Mako the binoculars. “She just uppercutted a zombie, in the face. You should have seen it! She punched clean through it! Killed it in a single blow. It was awesome!”

“Is she infected?” Mako asked as the tanned, clearly muscular girl came into focus. Her hair was once short, but was starting to get unruly, and she was dressed in tight, thick clothing. She was absolutely covered in blood.

“I don’t know. Can’t tell from here.”

“Do we invite her in?” he asked.

But before he could get an answer, the girl accidentally triggered one of their traps.

“AHHHHHHHHH!” rang out her scream.

Korra had avoided the bear traps and the trip wires, but she somehow didn’t see the pit of spikes that was concealed under what looked like a regular piece of decaying urban streets. She managed to jump at the last possible second, but she didn’t quite clear the pit. Korra slammed into the side and tried to claw her way up, but one of the spike got her right in the leg. It wasn’t quite enough to fully penetrate her calf, but she felt the cut was deep and long and just another fucking thing to add to the list of problems.

“God fucking damn it shit fucking ass,” Korra swore as she pulled herself up out of the pit. “Who the fuck is going around leaving insane boobie traps. Some kind of sadistic engineer of torture and pain? I swear to god if I run into another cult of nutballs like those Red Lotus fucks I’m gonna be so fucking done.”

Korra lay on the ground panting for a second when someone said, “I’m not a sadistic engineer. Just a regular engineer trying to survive the end of the world as long as I can.”

When she opened her eyes she saw three people, two of them visibly and heavily armed. The other, the woman who had just spoken, didn’t seem to be armed, but it was dark and there was something in the way she stood that suggested she could take Korra if she wanted to.

“Well I have a bone to pick with you,” Korra pointed towards the woman. “But first things first, can you help me up, since your trap fucked up my leg pretty badly. Secondly, do you guys have a shower by any chance?”

“Yes, and yes, but the shower is only for people we trust that we know aren’t infected,” the woman said with authority as Bolin carefully helped Korra up.

“Well I know I’m not infected so yay showers!” Korra said once she was handed a crutch to walk with. None of the trio seemed to want to get too close to the strange blood covered woman.

They got Korra back to the compound which was surprisingly well defended, stocked, and populated.

“Damn, this is the best place I’ve seen in a long time,” Korra said.

“Bolin, take her to quarantine,” the engineer who was clearly in charge ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” Bolin said as she gently pushed Korra towards the cages close to the entrance.

“Ugh, I hate quarantine,” Korra moaned. “Can I at least get some cleanish water, some soap, a rag, and a change of clothes? I haven’t bathed in like three weeks, or had a change of clothes in a month. Also a band-aid or something for this leg?”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Bolin said helpfully as he locked the cage behind Korra. He was a big guy, massive really, but his face was all kindness and warmth.

Bolin returned with the items Korra requested and the girl immediately started taking off her clothes which caused the shy Bolin to immediately turn and leave the area.

Asami had been watching the woman from afar, and noticed that she was incredibly fit and attractive. In another time, another place, she’d be all over that. But the girl was still in quarantine so there would be absolutely no touching. Spirits, that girl was attractive, and clearly didn’t have a thing for modesty as she’d just taken off all her clothes and started washing herself without bothering to hide.

She only looked for a little longer, just taking a moment to make a note of all the scars.

Korra finally got into a change of clothes that didn’t stink to high hell, and bandaged her leg wound. There was a crappy little mattress in the corner and Korra crawled to in and was asleep in moments.

The next morning, when Asami finished repairing the trap that Korra stumbled into, she went to check on the prisoner who was sitting cross legged and looking peaceful.

She grabbed some food, a couple of canned beans, and set them inside the quarantine cage.

Korra opened on blue eye, saw Asami, and smiled. “Morning Queen Engineer of Republic City.”

Asami’s lips twitched in what could have, for a single instant, been a smile, before she reigned it under control. “The name’s Asami. And I’m not queen of anything.”

“You might as well be,” Korra said. “Everyone here turns to you for answers and guidance and defense apparently. The name’s Korra by the way.”

“Asami.”

“So I suspect I’ll be in this little cage of yours for a week?” Korra asked. “That’s standard quarantine procedure. Then when I show no signs of becoming a lurching twit, you’ll let me out right?”

“That’s right,” Asami said. “Unless you show signs of turning, we’ll put you down now.”

“No chance of that happening,” Korra said. “So can I get a book or something while I wait this out?”

“There’s always a chance you’ll turn. Always. You were practically swimming in blood. You could have very easily been infected.”

“Nope.”

Asami frowned at her overconfidence.

Korra rolled up her sleeves and showed Asami a visible bite mark. The leader of the group immediately panicked, stood up, and pointed a gun at Korra.

“Jesus lady relax,” she said. “Do you know nothing of scars? Look at how old this is. This is healed and already starting to fade. It’s like… six months old? I got it last summer in Ba Sing Se. Fucking Ba Sing Se. Impenetrable City my ass. Two entire rings were totally infected and the inner ring was nothing but a bunch of inbred, cannibal, entitled assholes.”

The Korra turned around and showed Asami her tight, muscled back, covered in old bite marks and scars alike.

“This is from my run in with a doomsday cult two years ago. Those fuckers wanted to turn everyone into zombies and they damn near crippled me in the process,” Korra said before turning around to face Asami who was still pointing a gun at her. “So if I haven’t turned by now, I’m pretty sure I won’t be turning.”

“What the hell?”

Korra shrugged. “I don’t know. No one has been able to figure it out. And no one is really willing to put up with me for very long because of it, so I just kinda wander around from place to place.”

Asami lowered the gun. “Uh.. I’ll be back.”

Korra shrugged and grabbed the tin of beans. “Can I get a book?”

Asami found Bolin and Mako, “You two, suit up, find anyone you can and as much weapons as you can.”

“Why?” Mako asked.

“We’re going to the college, now.”

“That’s an all day excursion. It’s on the other side of town,” Mako said. “If you want to play it safe, it’s a three day journey. We need time to prepare.”

“No, I want to do this fast and now,” Asami said.

“Why? What’s changed?”

“The college will have textbooks on biology, immunology, that kind of stuff. I’m going to need to get my hands on as many of them as possible,” Asami said, mostly to herself.

“Planning on getting another Master’s?” Bolin asked.

“Well if the girl in quarantine is to be believed, she might be immune from the plague, and since I don’t know nearly enough about the human body,” Asami trailed off. She’d been collecting books from some of the local high schools to study agriculture, the human body, anything and everything she could learn to keep the group of people alive.

“Wait, you’re saying that she might be the cure?” Mako said.

“I don’t know, but if she is, I don’t know nearly enough to be able to do anything with that information. So we go to college today.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thegearinator asked: Ooooo... more prompts!? A follow up of my zombie prompt? Like a couple of months in the future or something they get over run and have to move, only to stumble upon 

“It’s like they fucking know!” Asami cursed as she tried to pack up her experiments and books and vials and stuff. “They know I’m trying to cure this goddamn plague!”

Korra put a gentle hand on the stressed engineer’s shoulder. “Asami, relax. You’ll get it. We just need to get to a safer location.”

Asami sighed heavily. It’s been a long time since she’s been able to sleep properly. She’s been stumbling her way through biology, chemistry, advanced immunology, pathology, and a random collection of other sciences she’d needed to learn on the fly over the last eight months. And Korra had been a trooper through it all. All of the blood Asami had been taking from her, all the tests and studies, Korra never complained. Well she complained, but never seriously. And her help had been invaluable in defense and survival of the little compound they managed to erect.

But over the last eight months, the attacks have been more frequent, more disastrous, bigger hordes. Asami couldn’t help but thinking that they were drawn to her work.

Drawn to Korra.

“Do you want me to help?” Korra asked.

Asami took a moment to look into those gorgeous blue eyes she’d gotten so used to seeing. Such strength and warmth and sexiness.

If it wasn’t the end of the world, if they weren’t beset on all sides by an unending tide of evil, Asami would be all confident and suave and like she was before the end of the world. She’d put on her favorite shade of red lipstick, a sexy black dress, saunter up to Korra and kiss her. But that world hadn’t existed in years.

“No, go help Mako and Bolin. I got this.”

Korra nodded, but stayed for a moment, just resting her hand on Asami’s shoulder. “Call if you need anything.”

The zombie immune woman walked over to the brothers who were checking the arsenal of weapons.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“Not good,” Mako remarked. “That attack from last week almost depleted us of ammo.”

“Shit,” Korra swore. “Fuck those Wolf Bat raider motherfuckers. I ever see them again, I’m ripping off their legs.”

“Same here,” Bolin said.

The raiders were the reason they needed to evacuate the compound that had housed them for so long. They’d attacked the walls, the single most important thing in the world, the zombie proof walls. The cracks from the explosions were heavy and severe and Asami couldn’t fix them with the hodgepodge materials she had. The entire group, almost three hundred people, would have to flee to another location.

An advanced war party had already scouted and secured a new location, but they’d have to move soon. Recon suggested a fresh, massive horde was coming their way.

“Do we have enough ammo to stall?” Korra asked.

“Not if we want to make it to the new place,” Mako said. “Not by a long shot.”

“Fuck,” Korra swore.

“And I checked the traps,” Bolin said. “A lot of them are close to failing.”

“Just keeps getting better and better,” Korra said. She knew what she was going to have to do, she just didn’t really want to, until it was her only option. “So we either die here, fighting, or we die there, running.”

“That about sums it up.” Korra took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well you know what you’re doing, right?”

Mako looked at her with an even, heavy stare. “We’re taking the people and running. What are you doing?”

Korra picked up her knife from the pile of blades, and grabbed a couple of others. “Me? Oh, I’m saying goodbye.”

“Korra,” Mako said, but before he could protest Bolin jumped up and hugged her tightly.

“You’d better come back,” he said. “I’m gonna miss you.”

Mako sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

“You’d better get ready,” she said. “You should move out as soon as possible. I’ll cover you guys as soon as I change.”

“You’d better say goodbye to Asami,” Mako told her. “If you don’t…”

“Yeah, I will.”

Korra went and changed into the clothes she first arrived in. Her leathers and furs and heavy clothing that gave her scratch and bite protection without really limiting her mobility. She attached her blades, she had two hunting knives, and two short swords on her. It should be enough to defend herself without really taking anything away from the survivors.

The last thing she did is took some mud and spread it across her eyes and forehead in war paint.

“Korra!” called a voice she knew belonged to Asami. “Come on! We’ve got to go!”

She found Asami and walked up to her. The instant her green eyes met Korra’s blue, she knew.

“You’re staying.”

“Yeah, I’m here to say goodbye, for now at least.”

“No. Don’t you dare. Don’t you even fucking think about it,” Asami said, somehow, suddenly she was crying. “You’re too important. You… you’re the key to everything here. You can save the world.”

Korra shrugged. “I don’t really give a shit about saving the world, I just want to save you and these people. Besides if anyone can face down the horde without guns and come back alive, it’s me.”

“No, Korra. Don’t go, you’re too important,” Asami cried, she started to repeat herself as she tried to say what she really meant. “You’re too important to everything, to everyone. You’re important to me!”

The second the words left her lips, Korra kissed her.

For a second the world and all of it’s damn problems melted away. There was only the two of them and a kiss that said all the things they were afraid to admit in the face of constant and ever present death.

“I’ll come back, one way or the other,” Korra promised. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while now. So you have to do me a favor. Get out of her3. Get everyone safe and in the new place. I’ll come find you there.”

Asami only nodded as Korra slipped out of her hands and left the compound to go fight off a horde of zombies single handedly.

“How many?” she asked Mako.

“This is likely to be the first wave,” he told the one woman defense. “But it looks like it’s thirty.”

Korra rolled her shoulders as she stepped out of the compound and towards the horde.

“Well it’s about damn time I break my personal record for kills in a single evening.”

“Korra?”

“Yeah?”

“You’d better survive.”

Korra smiled. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m the girl that can’t be defeated by a zombie! I’m immune!”

* * *

It had been three hours. Korra was pretty sure that she’d beaten her previous personal best for zombie kills in a single day with only melee weapons.

After those three hours her muscles started to burn and shake with exhaustion, and the zombies were certainly taking an interest as her. So she climbed a nearby defunct radio tower to rest.

God she was tired. But at least her bait tactic had worked. Not a single zombie had followed the 300+ people fleeing the compound. Korra held them off and killed off what she could.

That’s when it hit her.

The zombies did know.

They might not have known Asami was working on a cure, but the knew that Korra was special, she was the key.

They weren’t attacking the compound and the people because it was a huge mass of life for them to feed on. No. They were after her, because she was immune. She was different. She was the reason they were under attack.

Korra sighed and leaned back against the cold metal of the radio tower.

There were about 50 zombies below her, and more would be coming. Korra would have to break her promise to Asami. She couldn’t go back there, she’d be bringing every zombie in the city to them, and that was something she just couldn’t do.

She gripped her knife, the last one she had. The others got lost in the fighting. Thankfully it was the same one she took from home all those years ago.

“Well, it looks like it’s just you guys and me for the foreseeable future,” she said aloud to the moaning zombies below her. “How many of you are there in the city? How many will I have to kill before it’s safe enough to go back to her?”

The zombies’ only answer was more moaning.

 

Korra shrugged and tied herself to the tower as she leaned down, and started stabbing zombie skulls from above.

**Author's Note:**

> Send me prompts or bother me at falselordzalzabar.tumblr.com  
> Make sure your prompts are always at the top of my to write list at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=1008343&ty=h


End file.
